The glow of Liz's phone light could hardly breach the utter blackness around her. A deathly silence crept in close, surprisingly thin for as heavy as the situation warranted. The building was a labyrinth of crumbling walls and broken doorways, stuffing-spilled furniture and empty closets—what in God's name was Bijou doing in a place like this? It was dangerous and disgusting and . . . and so unlike her.

Liz swallowed, realizing how dry her throat was. Bijou had always been a little nuts. They'd met in high school as freshmen, never quite been friends, though, until they'd been randomly configured into a group project in sophomore lit class. Liz could no longer recall what that project had been, and yet against the two boys in their group, she and Bijou had formed a sort of rebellion. Their male counterparts had been the woefully immature types, the sixteen-going-on-twelve types who hid one another's shoes and mistook burping for intelligent conversation. Liz and Bijou had been miles beyond those boys, and they'd pitched enough of a fit to convince their teacher to split the group and allow the two of them to work on their own, as a pair. The resulting weekend spent on whatever project they'd completed had cemented their friendship, Bijou's fiery personality quite nicely complementing Liz's more mellow temperament.

Their subsequent high school years had passed with just the right amount of drama, never enough to inexorably rend their camaraderie yet always a little bit of something to keep the days interesting. Bijou had gone through a number of boyfriends, being the outgoing, well-developed sort she was, and though waifish Liz had proclaimed herself asexual and largely agreed with the label, she'd found herself on occasion envious of the young men her friend traded one for another like bits of bubblegum that'd lost their flavor. Bijou had never seemed to recognize her own potential, as much as Liz had tried to convince her of it, and when the time had come to begin making some sort of plans for life beyond the obligatory thirteen years of public education, Bijou had just . . . sort of . . . not.

Her friend's indifference toward her future seemed, to Liz, a passive aggressive revolt. Bijou's lack of direction had most definitely spawned months of argument with her mother—Liz had heard all about their epic fights, been the listening ear even while not being of like mind. Secretly, Liz was in agreement with Bijou's mother: Bijou needed to find focus, to have a goal, a project, something to pour herself into.

But Liz never pushed. It wasn't in her nature to be more than sarcastically obliging.

The space around her warmed unexpectedly, as if a vent had just opened, pushed out heat. Liz paused. Something in this blackness was different. She turned slowly, holding out her phone for its light, and realized she stood next to a staircase. A step forward, a look up toward the top, and Liz found her cell unnecessary, for somewhere up in the gloom a red ray shone, dusting the upper stairs in an eerie glow. If Bijou were anywhere in this cave, it'd be where light was, so, as much as Liz didn't want to ascend, she started up those stairs.

A fleeting notion of calling someone—Bijou's mom, the police, even Elliot (as useless as he'd be away at school)—flashed like a tiny Christmas bulb in Liz's thoughts, but as much as she wondered whether she should leave and get help, her legs seemed to move of their own accord. There was a misguided confidence in her friendship with Bijou, a false sense of security giving Liz the assurance that she'd be all right, that her friend would certainly not harm her. Had Liz been as savvy as she wanted everyone to believe she was, she'd have never come to check on Bijou let alone follow her to such a creepy remote location in a dying pocket of downtown. Liz should've trusted her intuition, that admonishing glimmer that'd grown within her since her cousin's disappearance. The family had tried to believe that Dave—Keller, as his contemporaries called him—had set off on some bender and forgotten to come home, had ended up setting off into the world; considering his age and lifestyle and the absence of evidence of foul play, the police had been less inclined to seek him, especially after a little boy had gone missing, that one they'd later found in the park rambling about caves.

But the manner in which Bijou had left and returned that night early summer, her aggressive behavior with Keller, grabbing him and hauling him off to have her way with him somewhere . . . it'd been weird. Bijou had sworn she'd left him at his front door when they'd said goodbye to one another, but the fact stood that she'd been the last person to see him that night.

Unfortunately, Liz's reservations were conveniently forgotten as she moved through the decrepit building. The staircase seemed abnormally long, but the higher Liz climbed, the brighter the red glow flourished. She expected to hear something—hushed conversation, flirtatious laughter, some indication of sexual satisfaction or at least of trying to achieve it—but she was aware only of the intense silence. It felt as if she were walking upward into her tomb, as if she were being buried with each rising step. When she reached the landing, a hall revealed itself; one end of it disappeared into darkness and the other led toward an open doorway. From that doorway poured a fat shaft of hellish light.

Liz paused. She had one foot still a stair below the landing, but a strange pulse had begun to beat against her, in the surrounding atmosphere itself. Something pressed into her flesh, more an insinuation than a surety. For the first time since following Bijou into the darkness, Liz fully understood she'd been foolish, and yet in spite of whatever red flags waved around her, she was relieved to catch a familiar voice as it emanated from beyond the gleaming door. What exactly the voice was saying was difficult to make out, so Liz put aside the warning alarms and proceeded down the hall. At barely two yards away from the light, she paused. Bijou's words drifted from the room in an almost gleeful intonation, and though Liz couldn't understand them, they sent a chill through her over-heated body: Toc, toc, toc, un, deux, trois. Minou viens jouer avec moi!

Between delighted giggles, Bijou continued her singsongy rhyme, over and over, while just outside the door, too anxious to look in, her friend stood, heart pounding.

"Oh hurry up, will you?"

Liz held her breath.

"Yes, yes. I know you're there. I've been waiting for you, but you take so loooong, and I can't hold it in any more!"

Before Liz could think of how to respond or whether to turn and run, Bijou popped out of the door.

"Will you please hurry up?"

A tiny gasp escaped Liz's parted lips as her friend materialized before her, a fiendish aura about Bijou's beautiful dark eyes, her bright wild hair (which was more pink than red in the lighting), her teasing, tongue-revealing grin.

Bijou ran her gaze over Liz's face as she leaned out the door, and then she puffed out a frustrated breath. "You followed me, remember?" she pointed out. "Don't you want to know?"

"I—I'm not sure . . ." Liz found swallowing difficult.

The infernal illumination painted the two young women as beings risen from the underworld. Bijou tipped her head to one side, stuck out her lower lip in a pout, and raised a hand to the other girl's face. She brushed the backs of her fingers against Liz's pale cheek, played with a strand of Liz's straight silvery hair. "Little mouse, are you going to play with me?" she purred. "Kitty's so hungry."

Liz trembled, whether from the touch or the words or something else she couldn't say, nor did she care any longer. She'd go wherever Bijou wanted her to go.

Even so, Liz was unprepared for the sight that met her when she stepped through that doorway. The room was nothing special, merely a windowless interior space as derelict and crumbling as the rest of the building. The red light, Liz saw, radiated from two EXIT signs, one above each of two doorways. Why they were in there, she didn't know—the placement didn't seem logical—and yet there they were. As far as furniture, none was present save for a neatly stacked pile of about six old mattresses, shredded in some places and springs popping out in others. Top-to-bottom, the fabric was stained in a dried waterfall of deep brown, though that didn't seem to offend the shirtless young man lying atop it. He was on his back, and his arms hung off the mattress at his sides. His undone belt caught a glint of light; his disheveled pants indicated Liz hadn't been entirely wrong about what she'd expected to find. Then she noticed that the man's fingers twitched every few seconds, and there was something about that movement, that and the fact that he didn't turn to look at them as they entered, that deeply disturbed her.

"He's been very compliant," Bijou explained, stepping toward the mattresses. "I gave him a little of what he expected, just to keep him here, but it would've been better if you'd hurried." She stuck her index finger between her lips and moved it in and out before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Liz ignored her friend's lewd gesture only because the sight of the seemingly senseless man was more distressing. "What's happening? Why is he . . . is he all right?"

"Nope. Definitely not!" Bijou's laugh edged on hysteria, but she caught herself rather quickly, one-eightied into sincerity, and leaning toward Liz, said, "You're going to enjoy this. I promise."

"No . . ." Liz began to back away. This was all wrong. It was all very, very wrong. "I don't know what's happening, here . . . you—you're scaring me."

Bijou stared at Liz, something of the insane in her round eyes, her petrified grin. Before the other girl could move too far away, Bijou snatched hold of her wrists, tightening her grip into handcuffs. "Don't be scared, little mouse! You have to let it in."

Liz's jaw tightened. "L-let what in?" She struggled to turn away from Bijou's glowing face.

"You'll be so glad you did. What do you want, Liz? What do you really, really want?"

"I don't know—"

"It does, though. It knows."

Glancing at the man on the mattresses then back to Bijou, Liz shook her head. "Who are you?"

"What, not who."

"Then what are you?"

Bijou loosened her grip on her friend's wrists. "Don't cry, Liz. Everything will be all right—better, even, than you know. I didn't expect you to come, but I'm glad you did."

She tried to tell Bijou no; she knew that whatever was happening, it was wrong. But Liz had always played second fiddle to this fiery friend of hers, had always desired to possess a little of the vibrant starburst that was Bijou.

"Come on, over here. Let me show you." Bijou drew the girl toward the darkened mattresses, toward the man lying on it.

The girls stood looking down on him, and Liz thought his eyes appeared strange—sunken. "What's with his eyes?"

In response, Bijou reached out and pressed a pointed finger on each of his closed lids. To Liz's horror, the flesh gave way, as if no actual eyeball were behind it.

"I didn't like the way he looked at me," Bijou stated nonchalantly, pushing her fingers in down to her knuckles before pulling them back out, "you know, while I—" She made her sexual gesture again, only this time, the finger she put into her mouth was coated in dark material.

"M-my cousin," Liz asked. "Did you—?"

Bijou shrugged playfully. "You can see him later," she chirruped. "Don't worry. I save all my friends, old and new. I have a whole collection. Now, let me show you what I've learned."

Incapable of denying the twin horror and intrigue that coiled through her, Liz took hold of Bijou's upper arm and squeezed, preparing herself for what was to come.